October 2012 Comics Sales Best 2011-Early NEW 52 Figures

Diamond Comic Distributors released their October 2012 sales figures Friday, and as expected Marvel's initial Marvel NOW! debut title Uncanny Avengers was the bestselling title for the month, helping Marvel regain their industry king-of-the-mountain status after being rolled down the hill by DC last month.

Marvel, who's already let it be known Uncanny Avengers (with a bevy of variant covers) sold well north of 300k copies to comic book retailers, won both the Unit and Dollar Market Share categories over DC, 35.14% vs. 31.51% Dollar, and 39.54% vs. 34.40% Unit.

The publisher also had the second bestselling title of the month - Avengers vs. X-Men #12 - and in what's lately become a rarity, can claim five of the Top 10 titles. DC only had four Top 10 titles - including Batman #13 (#3) - due to The Walking Dead #103 (#9) cracking the Top 10.

The bestselling graphic novel of the month was the second volume of J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis' OGN Superman: Earth One.

As has been the trend in 2012, and is now doubly important because year-to-date comparison are being made post-DC's New 52 relaunch, the big, noteworthy story is comics book and graphic novel sales were up over 21% over September 2012 and an astounding 19.50% over October 2011 sales, which was just the second month of DC's relaunch. While comic book unit sales were down a slight 0.82% over the same month last year, the growth can be largely attributed to an eye-popping 53.87% growth in trade paperback and graphic novel sales.

Year-to-date total comics and graphic novels sales in 2012 are up 16.55% over 2011 and more and more it looks like comic book retailers are poised to have a very strong holiday season, to wrap up an historically strong year.

Look for more October sales analysis by our content partners at Comichron later Friday.